1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer system and a method of monitoring the system, and more particularly to a computer system and a monitoring method suitable for a system having a plurality of computers on a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is very important for the management of a computer system to monitor each computer within the system. An effective monitoring method such as a centralized monitoring method is known as described in JP-A-3-144834 and JP-A-3-257639. A message display format for such a centralized monitoring method is also known as described in JP-3-257639 and JP-A-2-212947.
In the above-described monitoring method, only one receiving unit is used for receiving monitor messages transmitted from a plurality of monitored computers. A monitor message from one computer often continues occupying the operation of the receiving unit, resulting in a reception delay or discard of monitor messages from other monitored computers.
With the conventional monitoring method wherein one receiving unit (monitoring computer) is used for receiving monitor messages transmitted from a plurality of transmitting units (monitored computers), a message reception delay or discard may occur so that it is not possible to provide real time monitoring or it becomes necessary to limit the length of each monitor message.
The main feature of a distributed network system is its expansibility, i.e., when the system is required to provide more services or each computer becomes overloaded, loads of the system can be easily distributed to additional computers. To retain such a feature, it is necessary to make the monitoring function flexibly cover an expanded area of the network and flexibly absorb an increase in the number of computers. With the conventional monitoring method, however, it is necessary for each monitored computer to store an address of the monitoring computer. Therefore, the monitor area and a monitored computer registration table are required to be checked again each time the system configuration is changed.
Another issue associated with this conventional monitoring method is system reliability. As a means for improving the reliability of monitoring, the method as used with a multi-computer system has been adopted conventionally. However, this method greatly depends on the master-slave relationship of the system, posing a problem of a difficulty in adding and changing elements constituting the system.